I gotta at least weigh in on this one. I own a Spacedeck and a Spacearm, along with two other arms. I have listened to the Spacedeck carefully with quite a number of different arms, so I feel qualified to give an opinion, accepted and agreed with or not.
I tend to evaluate an arm more on the basis of the sound it produces and not looks. That said, I find the Spacearm attractive, admittedly more so in the case of the later carbon fiber arm than the earlier silver, metal arm. Anyway, looks is in the eye of the beholder, so one opinion is as good as another.
The headshell wiring does LOOK fragile but is really no more so than that on most other arms, all of which assume proper care is taken when installing a cartridge. It is van den Hul wire and is unshieled by design by Tom Fletcher. If you take the outer sheathing off many other headshell wires, you would find something very similar, if not identical. Given the nature of the arm, the headshell wires can be pulled back into the arm so that only about 3/4" are actually exposed.
As far as other arms go, I will recommend that if you buy the Spacedeck with Spacearm that you not part with the Spacearm until you have settled on what you feel is a better arm. There are several folks that I know who have bought a different arm, AFTER selling their Spacearm, based on what someone else said (who did not own the Spacearm) and wound up regretting their decision.
I have auditioned every OL arm on the Spacedeck except the Illustrious SIGNATURE. In each arm a Shelter 501, Shelter 901, and Dynavector XX-1 were used in comparison. In my opinion, on THIS TABLE, the Spacearm beats the OL Silver by a pretty decent margin in terms of overall pace and extension. I liked the extension of the highs much better, it had a slightly warmer midrange (which I like) and the bass was a toss up. I'm sure someone will say things would be different with the Twl HiFi mod. Maybe, but I've never heard that mod and so, like anyone else who hasn't heard it on this arm and table, can't make that claim.
I will emphasize that my comparisons are valid with these arms on the SPACEDECK, only, and are not specific to these arms on other tables or with other cartridges.
I thought that the Spacearm and the OL Encounter was a near dead heat with the Spacearm being a just a sliver on the warm side of neutral and the OL just a sliver on the bright side of neutral in comparison.
The comparison to the Illustrious was, not surprisingly, no contest. The Illustrious is double the price of a Spacearm, though, and not meant to be a direct competitor. Add to that the fact that even at its price the Illustrious is a bargain, and there ya go. If I were to buy a Spacedeck without and arm with the idea of adding and arm, I'd probably go with the Illustrious.
As far as other arms go, many feel that the Moerch DP6 is the arm for the Spacedeck but they are a bit picky to work with, in my opinion. Success has also been found with the Graham 2.2 but I think the Illustrious bests that arm for less money. I have head of success using the Triplanar arms, but I have not heard one on a Spacedeck.
Finally, if money were no object, I would buy the arm that I heard on a Spacedeck, Hyperspace, and Anna and thought was the best by a LARGE margin:
SCHROEDER MODEL1
The Schroeder outclasses the Spacedeck but, hey, you can always upgrade your table to the arm instead of the other way around! :-)
If a Dynavector is a must cartridge for you, I would recommend the XX-1 over the 17d2. If you get the 17D2, due to its length, make sure you can mount it successfully on whatever arm you buy.
